


Behind Nothing - The Rooms That Remember Us

by thebowtie



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest, Translation, holmescest, it's more art than anything else, might be rubish, probably sad ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 03:38:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1495147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebowtie/pseuds/thebowtie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This, this is a story without future and past. They come together for one single night, the night in which their time starts and ends, in only one breath. Familiar, strange skin, warm, soft, forbidden, and dark desire behind deep, forgetting eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prolog

**Author's Note:**

> hey there. so this is a translation of a fanfiction of mine. the original is written in German and I've no idea whether it makes any sense, but I simply felt the urge to translate it so...here we go.  
> the prolog and the epilog will be written in direct speech only. all the rest is prose.

[ _Mycroft_ , Sherlock]

 

_Sherlock._  
What are you doing here?   
 _I want to talk to you._  
There's nothing to talk about.   
 _Sherlock, listen to me._  
No.  
 _I -_  
I don't want to hear it, Mycroft.  
 _No matter what it is?_  
No matter.  
 _Sherlock._  
Leave.  
 _Listen to me._  
I said, leave.  
 _Sherlock._  
Now, Mycroft. Leave!  
 _Please._  
...

_I love you._


	2. the room with the broken window and the walls of cement

five years ago 

An empty room.  
Floor and walls made of impenetrable cement. Everything is made of it. Everything except the smashed panes on the floor beneath the window.  
The weak light of the underlying street is creeping over the grey walls, along the borders to the nightly darkness of the corners.    
Only one door, a rectangular hole in the dirty grey, which seems just like a gate leading into nothingness, absorbing even the brightest spark within the black behind it's sill.

A man stands in the doorway. He's there all of a sudden, without any visible arriving, and now he simply stands there and looks into the room; a perfect part of his environment in a grotesque kind of way, with his grey suit and the umbrella in his left hand.  
His eyes slide over floor and walls; more scathing than even the shards could be they pass the borders that are set to the light and linger in the shadows of the wall across the room.  
One of those shadows seems to be darker than the others. Deep and black he's nestling against the cold stone.  
The moment the man's entering the room, the shadow moves, too, even though there hasn't been any audible sound. It is shifting, seems to grow, until finally it is higher than wide and reaching almost to the ceiling, much reminding of a slim tree which is swaying in an invisible breeze. Something is glowing in it's depths. Two points like wan ghost lights in the night - the shadow has eyes.  
Mycroft stops. Looking at the figure that is now standing in front of him, only meters apart, on the dark side of the room.  
"Sherlock."  
His voice is quiet but still urgently, as though it is meant to break through the wall itself to reach the named person. There are seconds of silence in which the word is flying through the heavy air of the cold night - nine, ten, eleven - then there's something like a flash in the eyes of the shadow. Something like recognizing, like memory. Only a split second. There's nothing else. No time to think, no further warning, merely the fact that the shadow is shooting forward and then the hollow feeling of pain, both bodies on the ground. A wordless fight.  
When Mycroft opens his eyes he's looking up to a pale face, framed with dark curls, dirty, emotionless, familiar. A dark cut on the right cheek, slightly scabby, mark of a rusty razor blade, obviously.  
The umbrella isn't in his Hand any longer. Instead of it there are cool fingers around his wrists, holding them down left and right side of his head while his body is pressed to the ground by the weight of the other man. Not really heavy, but tough and strong. Very strong, even though it's obvious that he hasn't had much to eat lately. It's for the drugs the he's so strong, Mycroft knows it, as well as he's aware that it's senseless to fight. He'd loose.    
"Sherlock." He doesn't know why he's whispering. Maybe because he hasn't seen his brother in weeks, months even. Maybe because he feels the knees at his sides and the flat breath on his face. Maybe because it's always been the other way around. Now he is the helpless, entirely delivered to the other's mercy, without any possibility to defend himself. That's new. And maybe it's also the reason that his thoughts break, again and again, they fall apart, any sense left behind.  
"It's alright, Sherlock", his voice says, "It's alright. There's help coming. I..."   
A hand's lying on his chest. A cold hand, clearly perceptible even through the fabric of his three-piece suit. A hand which presses slightly closer to his skin, softly, carefully as though it wants to feel the heart beat of the body beneath. There is fascination written in those grey eyes now, childlike excitement which makes the dead expression and the emptiness appear less cold. Astonishment that is shifting into irritation only moments later when the pounding is suddenly getting faster. Confused the eyes wander back, locking with those that are so similar to them without knowing it.   
It's not planned. It's not steerable, not suggestible. It's simply happening. A simple movement and in this moment it seems like the most natural thing in the world when Mycroft is reaching up with his free hand to pull Sherlock's face closer to his own. 

Last thing he can remember is the expression in the eyes of his brother and his lips, slightly opened; for some reason the association _soft_. After that there's only light, shouting and strong hands that help him up from the ground. Next moment everything is clear and back in order again, as if a veil were raised and he's talking to a little official with glasses about necessary steps that must be initiated. Meanwhile Sherlock's guided out of the house to an ambulance by a grey-haired man and that spot over his heart feels oddly empty, as though something's missing without the hand placed there. 


	3. the room that remained in silence

4 years ago

It is quiet. One can see the water of the Themse, the cars on the bridge, the people, but there's nothing to hear.   
The room remains in silence. Exactly as the figure that's still standing at the glazed exterior facade, looking down at the river, out on the city.  
The police men are gone. And they've taken the murderer and the blood and the noise away. The white marble tiles gleam in the dim glow of the panel lighting. Plain and innocent. There's so much they could tell; about people who've been walking and dying on them, but they remain in silence, too. Speechless witnesses of life and death.   
In the middle of the room, the floor is opening and gives space for stairs from the basement. Framed by a silver railing, elegant and simple.  
Shoes are coming up the stairs, following them to where they end in the silence of the room. Measured steps, clear and determined. They're breaking through the silence for a few fleeting moments, then they stand still, only inches away from the pane.  
The figure at the window isn't moving.  
Silence is spreading again, though this time it's tenser. A quite fight. Hardly perceptible striving for a victory that isn't clearly defined and perhaps unattainable. Unspoken past, something paralyzing, something different that's lying between them, clearing the air and making it ring.

"So you're a detective again." No answer. The room's silent. "Why?"  
"Why would it bother you, Mycroft?" The other man's voice is sharp, cold as the world outside the window, but still calm, and when he turns to look at him, his eyes seem to be flooded by the icy waters that are surging beneath them.  
"Someone has to bother."  
"I don't need help."  
"No." A word that could mean anything and nothing at once. Question, Approval, Mockery, Unbelief.  
"I'm doing well on my own", he growls and his low voice sounds more dangerous now, angry.   
Mycroft laughs. He doesn't know why exactly, but he enjoys it. "That easy to provoke", says he and in his soft voice is more danger hidden than in the loud rage. Superiority  in view of the younger man's anger; just the way he feels about everybody else he's talking to, but this isn't the same. Here, it isn't only satisfaction that is lingering inside of him. It is different. The indifference is missing and he can't tell what's there instead of it yet.   
Sherlock doesn't answer. He simply glares at him out of his grey eyes and turns away. For the moment he's beaten and Mycroft knows that he hates it.

"What do you want?"  
"I want to warn you." Now Sherlock's laughing. Unemotionally, joylessly and with a touch of cynical amusement.  
"You can't intimidate me, Mycroft. Neither can your little guard dogs downstairs at the door, nor anything else you plan to set on me."  
"And yet you are here, aren't you?" Silence. "You stayed. Were it my guard dogs that kept you from leaving, I wonder, or did you just want to see me?"  
His brother's glance is strange. It is silence, but it isn't cold anymore and makes the mocking smile freeze on Mycroft's lips. It is different. And for a split moment Mycroft knows that it is this glance he wanted to see when he came here, though he wasn't aware of it.  
"You should be more careful who you mess with." Sherlock snorts, Mycroft raises an eyebrow. Their eyes are drowning in the river. "There are people you don't want as your enemies."  
"People who have aided and abetted a murder." Mycroft sighs.   
"They belong to one of the most influential families in this area, Sherlock."  
"And to one of the most criminal, I'd say. With a family father who's head of a smuggling organization and the most successful gang of burglars in the United Kingdom. What do you think where their influence comes from?"  
"I don't wish that you proceed against them without evidence for their crimes. Your part could quickly enough change from hunter to hunted. You wouldn't even recognize it." Again Sherlock snorts and this time the noise is one with the movement in which he turns to go. Nevertheless he stops for a moment and leans in to his brother.   
"Concerned, Mycroft?" He whispers quietly and the sudden closeness and the breath near to his ear almost make Mycroft jump. "In case it makes you feel any better in your concern about our name: I don't plan on proceeding against them. I leave the tea parties with the great and mighty to you."  
And with that he leaves, literally, the black coat close behind him, down the stairs and through the door, without that the guards stop him. A silent Mycroft left behind.

Outside of the window snowflakes start falling silently through the icy air of night.   
The room remains in silence.


	4. the room that backed away from the fire

2 years ago

Steadiness. The room is full of it. Warm light and cool silence. Flickering shadows dancing on dark wallpaper and black, high windows. They're hunting each other over uniform patterns and plain surfaces. Hiding in the corners of drawings and between the pages of unread books in old shelves. Brown wood planks. Venerable furniture. Bitterness in grey eyes. Mycroft isn't able to see it, but he knows it's there; always. Something unspoken, unspeakable, that's laying between them. A wall of bleakness behind the dark colors of his brother's clothes. He can see through it's stones the way he can see through glass, he knows every single one of them, he's helped to build them and he could never break through.  
The flames rise in the fireplace, licking at black wood. So hungry, so cruel in destroying that one thing that keeps them alive. The ground seems to shudder, almost imperceptibly shying away from the fire. It could open and nothing would change. Shadows are dancing and wood's burning, the room stays. Everlasting, unbending.

"Then that's it."  
It sounds as always. An ending phrase. A point. An invitation to leave the room. It is supposed to be that. But it doesn't feel like it; never. It feels like a question.    
He's standing before he wants to get up and looks into the face of his brother, exactly the same way as all the times they've been here before. Only that this time he knows - and it's like something he's known before and just forgot about. Every time he is hoping for an answer. But there will never be one. Too much things that can't be said, that do not want to be heard.  
"Any sense in offering you honors of any kind?"  
"You tell me." It is funny how little the cold distance in Sherlock's voice fits with the meaning of his words. Only at such moments Mycroft is aware of something that actually doesn't exist between them anymore - a facade, a masque that almost fails to protect him.    
He lowers his gaze. Just for so short a moment that everyone else would forget it immediately. Not so Sherlock. Sherlock will store it somewhere in the depths of his beautiful brain, but Mycroft's sure he can't understand it, not yet. He sighs toneless. Sherlock's puzzled, but Mycroft only gives a short nod and turns to the open file on the desk in front of him. His movements are routine, they're save.  
Sometimes there are moments in which it feels strange. The distance between them, the _otherness_ , here in this room where everything seems to last. They can feel it both, but they don't understand.   
Mycroft wants the moment to last, but at the same time he doesn't want wanting it. He's afraid to understand. Making Sherlock go away is the only logical option. He can't stand the fear.

"Still solving crimes for the Yard?" They both know it's not a question.    
The fire twitches and flickers, and it seems as if it freezes in the eyes that reflect it.  
"Good evening, Mycroft."

Sometimes there are moments in which it feels strange.  When he's looking after the black coat of his brother and wonders, how often he'll have to watch him go away. And sometimes the fear that one day he won't come back anymore gets the better of him.  
  
"Sherlock."  
It's lightly, barely even a whisper and he's almost sure that he hasn't even said it out loud. The slim figure that's stopping, only inches away from the door, however, proves him wrong. Slowly, very slowly Sherlock's turning around. He doesn't understand so he has to see. And Mycroft's watching him and wonders what it is he will see in his face. When their eyes meet the ice is gone. Shadows dance and flames flicker, but nothing is lasting. They just look at each other and both know it.   
Sherlock doesn't say anything. He's just looking back at him questioningly, as though he's unsure what to expect. It isn't unfamiliar, because somehow it must have happened before. It seems as though Sherlock raises his hand and reaches out for him. Mycroft can see it, how long, pale fingers are touching stones of glass, letting them steam up.  
And he feels his gaze breaking before it reaches the ground. He is a coward to look away, but as long as there isn't a reason, as long as he doesn't understand, Sherlock won't neither. And Sherlock doesn't. Mycroft can tell by the sound of his steps leaving the room and the opening and closing of the heavy door. He can hear it in the sudden emptiness of the room and, God, yes, he knows why it feels so terrible unbearable, but for the first time since he can think, he doesn't want to know.

What remains is the imprint of a pale hand on glass and the memory of steadiness. 


	5. the room that buried them alive

2 months ago

The air is cold and tastes like winter. Icy and sharp. (Why is it always winter?, he wonders.)  
It smells like snow and heavy, grayish white clouds and like the dust that's lying on the ground. It's not much dust, barely visible beneath the wet and hard coldness, but it is old. Very old. Older then the corridor and even older than the house. The walls are grey and repellent, the doors are brown and faded. There are three of them. Three doors of sad wood that's sleeping and dreaming - of high forests and wind in the branches.  
The window at the end of the corridor's open. Just as though someone just fled through it and forgot to close it. As it is, nothing's keeping the night outside and she's dripping chill and silent over the frame on the floor. Creeping her way to the gaps under the doors and flows through them, all elegant darkness. Only one gap makes her stop and she's staying in front of it, shuttering.

Behind the door warmth is spreading upwards from a fireplace. Hot and comfortable it closes around two bodies in strange distance.

"You can't hide here forever."  
"And you can't change it. I solve my cases on my way." The voices are fencing. They're fencing their battle about which one gets closer to the night. The night listens, flattered. The warmth doesn't bother.  
"Your _cases_ ", Mycroft snorts, laughs almost, "You do not have any cases, Sherlock."  
"Thanks to you, I assume."  
"You'll get a new case from the Yard as soon as you've sold this case for me."  
"You can't tell me what to do." Anger and disdain behind calm words. They are brothers because they're giving themselves reasons to hate each other.   
"Can't I?", asks he. Softly and mocking and dangerous. He can feel the satisfaction rushing through his veins - the awaited feeling of otherness. The tension between them. He wants to push him further, he wants to see him like this just for a while longer: angry and with pale eyes sparkling. And the more he wants it the more he feels how he's slipping. The room is full of it - of all his desire and the control he shouldn't have lost. Only Sherlock isn't feeling it yet. He doesn't know that he's feeling it. It's there for far too long to feel new, but it's different, something they both long for so desperately. It is this one step that's one step too far. "But I could force you." 

It's wicked, the way their eyes are locked into each other and can't look away even if they want to, and Mycroft watches how the darkness of understanding is blowing Sherlock's pair black. He loves it and at the same time he's afraid. Subliminally, insignificant - he doesn't want to be afraid right now. Because he's close, too close and still too far away. He's so focused on Sherlock that he doesn't even wonder when and how he's gotten that close to him; his hands rest right and left side of Sherlock's armchair, leaving him no way to escape, though he always could. It's the last chance to turn away, but Mycroft can't. He's leaning in even closer. There are points at which you simply can't turn away anymore and he really shouldn't have passed that point, but he did. 

Alone their thinking, their knowledge of what is coming next, makes them tremble and the desire he feels inside (he felt all this time) tries to melt his mind away. In the end, Sherlock's doing the trick quite well.   
"I'd like to see you try." Sherlock whispers, voice lower than ever before, and then everything gets blurred. Sherlock beneath him on the ground and their bodies pressed together hot and hard. And finally he can be sure, sure that Sherlock wants him just the way he always wanted Sherlock, because it's impossible not to, because their meant to be like this, made to want each other until it kills them. And he also knows that there's no turning back. Knows when he's unbuttoning Sherlock's shirt, knows during he lets his hands slide over every inch of white skin, with relish and always pressing closer, surrounded of the repressed, dark groaning of his brother. And he knows that he mustn't think of it.    
  
This, this is a story without future and past. They come together for one single night, the night in which their time starts and ends, in only one breath. Familiar, strange skin, warm, soft, forbidden, and dark desire behind deep, forgetting eyes.  
They've never forgotten and never forgiven, but for that one darkness it simply doesn't matter.   
It is a secret. Black and bitter on their tongues entwined fighting. Trembling, it creeps over their bodies that greedily embrace each other in death-born passion.  
It is the too-much that makes them want even more and the tension that's so unbearable that they want it to last for ever. It's the end they'll end up at which mustn't come and still gets closer with ever whimper and moan and _please, please I can't...I'm  -fuck- I'm begging of you-_

There's no taboo that can be broken only partly, no line that can be crossed just to turn back again. It is an all or nothing.   
They are all, everything.

And they know, as soon as the day will find his way through the gap under the door - they will be nothing. 


End file.
